Empathy as the key to successful business correspondence

Abstract

Efficiency of written business communication is very much determined by humans’ ability to correctly interpret and decode the received letter in order to make sure the reply meets the addressee’s expectations and contributes to maintaining mutually beneficial relationships. In this respect, empathy starts playing the main role as it allows to hear the addressee and write a letter that is valuable in terms of information it conveys. The article shares the results of the analysis of students’ business letters and offers some practical recommendations that could be useful for those who are interested in perfecting their business correspondence.